Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-01-17
If You Will Not Enter the Port oil
Safety on Board the Ship, Float
In on a Spar.
You Say You Do Not Believe in He'll,
Do Y0u Believe Herod With His
Children Victims is in Heaven?
If You Have Been a Sinner All Your Life
And Have Day or an Hour Left.
Go to Christ.
Special to the Gazette.

largest Protestant church in America,
has been thronged twice on the Sabbath,
every ava liable inch occupied, even the
aisles, pulpit stairs and doorways, and
multitudes going away unable to get in.
DR.. Tal1age recently announced to his
congregation that, if the present build
ing could be sold for an academy OF
music, another church, one holding le.-
o00 people, would be erected. This
morning after expounding the scriptures,
he gave out the hymn:
Sinners turn, why will ye die?
Sod, your Maker, atks you why
The subject of the sermon was
"Broken Pieces of the Ship" and the
text, Acts xvii, Al: "Some on broken
pieces of the ship" DR.. Talmage spoke
as follows:
Never of Goodwin Sands, or the
Skerries, or Cape Hattelas was ship
in worse predicsment than in the Medi-
terranean hurricane was the grain ship,
on which 276 passengers were driven on
the coast of Malta, five miles from the
metropolis of that Island, called Citta
Vecchia. After a two weeks tempest
and the ship was entirely disabled and
captain and crew were completely de-
m0ralized, an old missionary took COM
mand of the vessel. He was small,
CROOKED BACKED
and sore-eyed, according to tradition.
1t was Paul, the only unscgred man
aboard. He was no more afraid of
Euroclydon tossing the Mediterranean
Sea, now up to the gates of heaven and
now sinking it to the gates OF he'll, than
he was afraid of kitten playing with 3
string. He ordered them all down to
take Their rations, first ask
ing for them blessing. Then
he insured all their lives, telling them
they would be rescued, and, so far from
losing th-ir heads, they would not lose
SO much of their hair as you could cut
of with one click of the scissors; aye,
not thread OF it, whether it were gray
with age or golden with youth. "There
shall rot hair fall from the head Of any
of you"
Knowing that they can never get to the
desired port, they m3ke the sea or the
fourteenth night black with overthrown
cargo, so that when the ship strikes it
will not strike so heavily. At daybreak
they saw creek, and in their exigency
resolved to make for it. And so they cut
the cables, took in the two paddles that
the main-sail SO that they might come
, with such force as to be driven high up
the beach by some fortunate billow.
There she goes-tumbliDg toward the
rocks, now Prov foremost, now stern
foremost, now rolling over to starboerd,
now wave dsshes Clear over the deck
and it seems as if the old craft has gone
forever. But up she comes again. Pauls
arm around NEST, he cries: Gail is
well. God has given me all those that
sail with me.n Crash! went the PROV
with such force that it broke of the mast.
Crash went the timbers till the seas
rushed through from side to side of the
vessel. She parts amldships, and into 8
thousand fragments the vessel goes, and
into the waves 2I6 immOrtalS are precip
itated. Some of them had been brought
up on the seashOre and hsd learned to
swim, and with their chin just above the
waves and by stroke of both arms and
propulsion
OF BOTH FEET,
they put out for the beach and reached
it. But alas for those others! They
had never learned to swim, or they were
wounded by the falling of the mast, or
the nervous shock was too grestfor them.
And others had been weakened by long
sea-sickness.
Oh, what will become of them? cake
that piece of a rudcer," says Paul to one.
"Take that fragment of q SPAR" says
Paul to another. "Take that table"
"Take that image OF Castor aud PolluN."
"Tske that plank from the lifeboat."
"Take anything and head for the beach,"
What a struggle for life in the breakers!
On, the merclIess waters, how they sweep
over the heads of men, women and Chi
dren! Holu on there! Almost ashore,
keep up your courage! Remember what
Paul told you. There, the receding wave
on the besc1 leaves in the sand whole
family. There crawls up out of the surf
the centurion. There another plank
comes in with q life clineing fast to it.
There another piece of the shattered YES
sci with its freIghtsge of an immortal
soul. They must by this time all be
saved. Yes; there comes in last of all,
for he had been overseeing the rest, the
old missionary, who wrlngs the water
from his gray besrd and cries out: "Thank
God, all are here!"
Gather them around fire and call the
roll. Paul builds a fire, and when the
bundles of sticks begin to crackle, and,
standing and sitting around the blaze,
the passengers oesIn 10 recover iIoIh
their chill and their wet clothes begin to
dry, and warmth begins to come into all
the shiyering passengers, let the purser
of the vessel go arouod and see if any of
the poor creatures are missing Not one
of the crowd that were plunged into the
sea. How it relieves our anxiety as we
read: "Some on broken pieces of the
ship, and so it came to pass that all es
capped safe to land u
Having on previous occasions looked
at the other passengers, | contlue myself
to-day to the examination OF those who
came in
ON BROKEN PIECES
of the ship. There is something about
them that excites in me an intense inter-
est. l am not so much interested In
those that could swim. They got ashore as
| expected. A mile of water is not very
great undertaking for Il strong swimmer,
or even two miles are not. But l cannot
stop thinking about those on broken
pieces of the ship. The great gospel ship
is the finest vessel of the universe and
can carry more passengers than any craft
ever constructed, and you could no more
wreck it than you could wreck the throne
of God Almighty. l wish all the people